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When I was about to turn 50, I went into a kind of personal revision and observed my own priorities and what led those priorities in my life. And many things that, in a way, were profound.

Turning 60 had an impact on my heart and soul, I must say, because you're dealing with time: past, present, and future. You suddenly realize you've come down the road quite a ways.

I love the perspective afforded by having lived five decades, a degree of bemused and muted calm, a relief from the insistent demands of a turbulent ego and rampant ambition. I'd love to stay here forever. But something tells me that 50 is a sunny idyll, a temporary state of grace, a golden afternoon.

When I turned 50, something clicked in my head and I said, 'I'm not going to live to 100. I'm half-cooked already.' I set the family down and I said, 'Listen everybody, we're now entering the decade of Daddy. We're going to start doing things that I want to do.'

What happens at 50, more or less, you lose what you need to create another person, to sustain another person; you keep what you need to sustain yourself. And there's something wonderful about that.

If you're 50, you're never going to be 50 ever again, so enjoy being 50. If you sit through the year wishing you were younger, before you know it, it's going to be over, and you're going to be 51.

I'm someone who's done the opposite of whatever the received wisdom is, to keep your career going into your 50s.

When I turned 50, I said to myself, well, if this is what it's like turning 50, I can't wait to turn 60 because I still felt very, very mentally and physically good, outside my back surgery.

I don't like being 50 and I don't like thinking about death.

A lot happens at 50, the best thing being that you just don't care anymore. At 40, you still care. At 30, you care way too much - and your twenties are quite frankly a nightmare. Bring on 60, I say: just imagine the joy of having grandchildren.